Runnin Octopi from a ssd?

General
1

Hi
want to go to an next level octopi Server and boot form a copy of octpi on the ssd
I know that if you install buster with Interface there is a program that easily copy the whole OS to the SSD.
as I am not a expert in Linux I ask for help to do so
istthere anybody that has a knowledge of how to copy sdcard to SSD on commandline?
is there anybody that has done that already and can me help to copy and run my octoprint on the Pi4 and ssd boot

Thanks in adavance
P.S. if the sd card staying the master for having a safty copy and be the master of change, is there a possibility to update the ssd (rcync?)in either or both ways?

2

You could use https://github.com/billw2/rpi-clone to make a clone of the SD to the SSD but you may need to search elsewhere (like the RPi forums) to get help on getting the RPi to boot from it.

The question I would want answered is does this provide any better performance since the SSD is being accessed through a USB3 port (I'm pretty sure that through a USB2 port, the SSD would be slower than the SD).

3

I have done testing with HDPARM on both the pi3 using SSD's via USB2.0 and pi4's using the USB3.0 interface. Even via USB2.0 the SSD is at least twice as fast as the SD cards And I have tested just about every brand SD card, and the UHC1 speed.

4

that's what I get with my pi 4 and a sd card

root@octopi:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=~/test.tmp bs=1M count=1024
1024+0 Datensätze ein
1024+0 Datensätze aus
1073741824 bytes (1,1 GB, 1,0 GiB) copied, 28,9716 s, 37,1 MB/s

root@octopi:~# dd if=~/test.tmp of=/dev/null bs=1M count=1024
1024+0 Datensätze ein
1024+0 Datensätze aus
1073741824 bytes (1,1 GB, 1,0 GiB) copied, 24,4026 s, 44,0 MB/s

Pi 3+ with a Samsung 860 SSD via USB 2.0

pi@raspberrypi:/mnt $ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=test2.tmp bs=1M count=1024
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 31.4948 s, 34.1 MB/s

pi@raspberrypi:/mnt $ dd if=test2.tmp of=/dev/null bs=1M count=1024
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
1073741824 bytes (1.1 GB, 1.0 GiB) copied, 34.7103 s, 30.9 MB/s
6

SSD performance and USB3 on a RPi4
I just switched my home NAS to a raspi 4 with Disks attached to USB3
The Nas System with OMV achieves arround 100MB/s throughput so gigabit maxed out!
Hope this answers the concernpi4omv5SSD.diskperformance

7

thanks to b-morgan, the advice with rpi-clone has worked perfectly.
Just run rpi-clone sd card out and voila boot from ssd
(prerequisite:I have setup rpi-config for USB boot and updated the system /firmware to the latest)

8

Till now, I've done it by copying the SD card onto the SSD, then chroot to the SSD. You still have to boot from the SD card that way but that only lasts a few seconds.

9

I used Balena Etcher. It now comes with a cloning option right on the home screen

Screenshot (1)
Screenshot (1)1920×1080 157 KB

. I used this with inside of regular old windows 10 with absolutely no fuss. It just works! Octopi running at up to 200 Megabytes transfer rate per second over usb 3.0 with Argon One case with attached M.2 bottom case upgrade. I have my raspberry pi 4B over clocked to 2.4GHZ stably. Octoprint is nice and zippy now!

10

Just a +1 to this thread. I recently started experiencing some 'glitches' with printing via my RPi4 and OctoPrint. I had a print that kept generating M112 Errors and halting the printer, and then, suddenly - the Pi wouldn't even power up. I'd long-worried about the durability of the microSD card, especially due to the constant writing of print job uploads, and timelapse videos (I've got 2 webcams attached, so each print can generate as many as 3 video files).

Fortunately, I had all the parts on hand for this planned-but-never-executed upgrade. Too bad I hadn't done it before the failure -- that would have made it even easier -- but at least I had a recent backup.

So - I updated the bootloader firmware to enable USB boot, burned a fresh OctoPrint image to a new SD card, restored my backup, and then used rpi-clone to copy it to the SSD.

I was anticipating increased durability / reliability - and of course, capacity (I'm using a 500GB SSD) - but what I didn't expect was the dramatic increase in performance. In hindsight, looking at throughput numbers for the SD card vs. USB3 - it should have been obvious.

Everything from file uploads, gcode parsing, print-time estimation... and even responsiveness of the terminal when running commands via SSH - is very noticeable.

I've you've been on the fence about this - climb down, order yourself an SSD and know that you've made a good decision. :smiley:

Thanks again for the amazing tool, the ecosystem of plugins, and the supportive community!

1 Like
11

You should totally do a YouTube tutorial on that! I'd love to get off of SD cards that seem to fail over a year or two of steady use.

1 Like
12

It's pretty easy.
Just flash the image onto the ssd like you would do it with an sd card (if the Pi Imager doesn't list the ssd use balena etcher), connect it to your Pi 4 and boot it.
Iirc it should support usb boot out of the box.

If that isn't the case you have to change the bootloader once.
Open the Pi Imager, scroll down to Misc Utility Images, then Bootloader, then USB boot.
Flash that on an sd card, put it in the Pi, power it up, wait like 5 minutes, unplug it - done.

1 Like